SOAPBOX

SOAPBOX; Enough, Already!

By JILL EISENSTADT;

Published: September 18, 1994

SHE'S the gum crackin', chain-smokin' Bay Ridge/Woodside/Richmond/Woodlawn hairdresser/secretary who tells it like it is and don't take no crap from no one. Only her best friend has bigger breasts and hoop earrings, a thicker accent and make-up job. Only her Pops gets to call her his "little girl" and slap her can when she serves his eats. Her mother makes a good sauce, the best, and crosses herself frequently. Her boyfriend? Well, all's he ever wants is to hang out with his loser buddies: flashy mobsters, unemployed home boys or blue-collar toughs.

Sure, she loves him but, ya know, like she's got dreams as symbolized by The Bridge, which looms in the near distance, majestically back lit. It's her ticket outta this lousy neighborhood, her chance to finally become someone. Could it be that underneath her helmet of hair lies a C.E.O.'s brain with the potential for appreciating literature and painting? Or will she just win Lotto and get to shop at Saks? It's the genuine article, The Outerborough Chick. Coming soon to a theater near you!

Wait a minute, I think I've seen that movie. Annabella Sciorra? Rosie Perez? She calls off the wedding and dates the college professor? Or is it that other one, where she gets pregnant and the two possible dads smash up the pizzeria? I'm confused. I'm amazed. I'm amused by the way Hollywood portrays us New York City females if we happen to live outside Manhattan. 1. WE'RE COMIC

Yes, many of us come from large, loud ethnic families and have learned to squawk rapidly to be heard. But this accent has been so played up that whenever I tell anyone I'm from Brooklyn and Queens, they say, "But you don't have that funny accent," or more interestingly, "But you're not funny."

Even if I did have "that funny accent" (which, for the record, differs from borough to borough) would it necessarily follow that I was as funny as "Funny Girl" and "Arthur" would suggest? Are we, as a group, really funnier than women from other places? I don't think so. I've seen only two truly sorrowful female outerborough characters -- Annette in "Saturday Night Fever" and Vicky in "Raging Bull" -- and a third who actually manages to rise or sink beyond sadness to the level of tragic. Then again, this third, Tralala, the gang-raped prostitute in "Last Exit to Brooklyn," was created by a novelist, Hubert Selby. He'd never buy the myth that . . . 2. WE'RE ALL ITALIAN

Out of the roughly six million people who live in the boroughs, a scant 10 percent have their roots back in the boot. But you'd certainly get a different impression after seeing "Mr. Wonderful," "Angie," "Moonstruck," "Raging Bull," "29th Street," "Cookie," "Married to the Mob," "Wise Guys," "Queens Logic," "True Love," "My Cousin Vinny," "The Wanderers" and "Mac" to name a few. Maybe what we have is a disproportionate number of Italian-American directors or screen writers. Certainly, what we have is an audience that never tires of Mafia hit men and large gaudy weddings. Of course, there's Woody Allen, but usually only mothers dwell in his cinematic outerboroughs. (Even when she's a disembodied head in the sky above Manhattan, we know she's really back in Midwood). Of course, there's Spike Lee, but even he highlights Italians in films like "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." And I'm not sure he's entirely innocent when it comes to perpetuating the idea that . . . 3. WE'RE CRUDE

To his credit, Spike Lee questions and plays with this stereotype. The women in "She's Gotta Have It" neither speak in shrieks nor dress clownishly. There's a musician, an artist, even, gasp, a lesbian. The film's protagonist, Nola, is sleeping with three men. But instead of being branded a slut, she's celebrated as liberated. Instead of worrying about her reputation (another outerborough theme), she's proud to thoughtlessly pursue sex. In short, she's a man in a woman's body, which is to my mind just another way (albeit an updated and roundabout one) of portraying the outerborough chick as crude, as macho.

This is not to say coarse, tacky outerborough chicks don't exist. Growing up in Rockaway our favorite sport was ridiculing the Canarsie girls who'd sashay down to the beach in six-inch heels, bikinis and belly chains. We called them "hitters" (for hitting on our boyfriends, I guess). Now they're more commonly labeled The Bridge and Tunnel Crowd. But don't forget, three of those bridges and tunnels lead to Jersey. Visibility a majority does not make. Some of us might even take issue with the notion that . . . 4. WE'RE BLUE COLLAR

I know, I know, this is only movieland. Viewers expect their New York City professionals to live in fabulous uptown doorman buildings. Their writers in picturesque Greenwich Village squalor. It doesn't matter if all the painters actually live in Greenpoint, the Wall Streeters in Brooklyn Heights, the writers in Park Slope, the lawyers in Forest Hills. We're comforted by the gossipy manicurist, entertained by the foul-mouthed, hard-luck waitress;it's what we're used to. Why complicate a simple Mafia movie by giving the wife an interior life or, God forbid, career aspirations? If by chance, one of our ilk should have a glimmer of ambition, class or talent it's artistically superior if . . . 5. WE'RE ASPIRING TO LIVE IN MANHATTAN

You have no idea how it changes right over there across the river. It's different. It's beautiful. People are beautiful. Offices are beautiful. Lunch hours are beautiful, too. -- Stephanie in "Saturday Night Fever"

In fact, I (and most of my friends out here) had similar delusions. But after 5 or 10 years of cramped, expensive apartments, we came to our senses and retreated to a saner, greener, more spacious existence. Hopefully, it won't prove true that . . . 6. WE'RE ABUSED AND ABUSIVE AND IT SHOWS

They looked beat up. And the stuff they wore was thrown together and cheap, a lot of pantsuits and double knits. And they talked about how rotten their kids were and about beating them with broom handles and leather belts but that the kids still wouldn't listen. -- Karen in "Goodfellas."

I have no idea how accurate this image is but it's certainly been around a long time. After all, what's a Mafia movie without at least one wife-battering scene? Would we still laugh with Ralph Kramden if he didn't threaten to send Alice to the moon? Early in "Raging Bull," Jake La Motta's first wife is browbeaten for cooking the steak wrong. In"Saturday Night Fever," Annette is gang raped for worshiping the disco king. In "Goodfellas," Karen gets a lamp thrown at her for confronting her husband's infidelities. True, we put up a fight but . . . 7. WE'RE NEVER HEROINES

"Working Girl" is the one of the few exceptions -- if you consider lying your way to the top noble behavior. Otherwise, you have to go way back to that old classic, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

But it's worth it, if only for a glimpse of where our image originated. For like any cliche it has its basis in the truth.

Kate, the tactless, uneducated wife of a charming but unstable alcoholic makes no apologies -- "My kids are gonna be somebody if I gotta turn into granite rock to make 'em." Her hardness may take its toll -- "Funny, sometime, you forget you are a woman" -- but it also insures the family's financial survival just as her sister, Sissy, though tacky and crude, uplifts it through humor. The Tree is really no different than The Bridge, a symbol for her daughter, Francie, of a brighter, more artistic future. But like all the outerborough chicks who succeed her, she's smart enough to know that the first requirement for making it out of the neighborhood is to tell it like it is and take no crap from no one.